Thermal stress from the 2015-2016 El Niño triggered the worst global bleaching and mass coral mortality event on record. Dr. Baum’s long-term field site in the central equatorial Pacific, Kiritimati (Christmas Island) was the epicenter of this event, experiencing ten straight months of anomalously high temperatures. Dr. Baum will share her experiences about the opportunities and challenges associated with attempting to study ecosystem resilience during a climate catastrophe, and the ecological surprises arising from the six expeditions she and her team made to Kiritimati over the course of the event.